


White Lie

by bergamot



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Jaime/Brienne Appreciation Week, Jealousy, One Shot, Post - A Dance With Dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:25:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4975330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bergamot/pseuds/bergamot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime and Brienne come to an understanding outside the Bloody Gate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Lie

**Author's Note:**

> JB Week, Day 7 - White
> 
> This was going to be my post for Day 3, Green, but this one-shot has seriously been the death of me. I could probably take another twenty years playing around with it, but it's the end of JB week, so cheers!

Jaime paused at the top of the rise to scan the skeletal trees for signs of life. The snow was thick and mostly undisturbed; a single line of animal tracks skittered across a clearing to his right. _At least,_ he thought, eyeing them, _we will eat tonight._ To his left, a tumble of granite boulders made a low natural wall. The Bloody Gate rose up just beyond them, parapets of grey stone still too far away to see the snapping blue banners of House Arryn but close enough to worry about patrols.

Jaime looked back at the party struggling through through the snow to reach him. Brienne and the boy — Podrick — swayed together on the back of a grey mare. Podrick had his arms around Brienne’s waist, his eyes squeezed shut against the stinging snow that blew down from Jaime’s perch. Brienne’s left hand was thrown up before her face, clutching a long scarf of linen to her cheek, occasionally tugging it closer when a bitter gust assaulted them. Her armor was bundled in a dirty yellow cloak on the back of the mare, and Jaime wondered if the wench was freezing in her wool and boiled leather — her own cloak long gone to wrap around the boy. 

Just beyond them rode Ser Hyle Hunt. Jaime narrowed his eyes and watched the man maneuver his chestnut cob around a snow drift. Hunt sat a decent horse, though he had a tendency to grow impatient, and oftentimes, Jaime would catch his words flying on the wind, cursing his horse and the snow and the Starks. Not for the first time, Jaime wondered who this man was to Brienne. The wench was not the type to acquire hangers-on, and yet here she was with a boy younger than Jaime’s own squire, Peck, and a plain-looking hedge knight who took more interest in making snide comments than of being any real use on this trip.

They’d journeyed to the Vale by way of Wickenden and Redfort, giving both towns a wide berth. Jaime would have preferred the High Road through the mountains, for the way was shorter, but it was closed now due to heavy snow. There was an alternate road here, somewhere; it skirted the Mountains of the Moon and kept to the foothills instead, sometimes dropping off into a gully, sometimes pitching up into the mountains. They caught glimpses of crudely built trail markers every few miles — most were buried beneath the snow, but a few were tall enough to make out their shapes beneath the drifts. It would not be long now before winter storms made their journey through the Vale almost impossible. One or two more nights and they would be before the Bloody Gates. It would be a wonder if they could gain passage through.

Waving his arm in the air, Jaime hollered down at the group. Brienne raised her head toward him. Jaime gestured to his right, and then he turned his mount and headed over the ridge.

*

They made camp on the edge of the clearing. There was nothing there for the horses, so Podrick and Hunt spent time beneath the trees, pulling bark and digging for grass. Jaime doubled back to cover their trail as best he could, dragging an empty saddlebag across the furrows their horses had dug in the snow. Nothing would save them from the notice of riders, especially as Brienne cleared a bit of ground for a fire, but Jaime’s stump was itching, and he needed to feel useful.

The air was sharp as a blade, the sky overhead as blue as the banners of House Arryn. The powdery snow coated the hem of his cloak and the wool of his pants. There was something almost soothing in sweeping the canvas back and forth across the snow, the _shush shush_ of the bag whispering against the blowing wind. The Mountains of the Moon loomed along the horizon, rising up like a cresting wave of white. _Sansa Stark could be hiding among those peaks._ The thought was unwelcome, a bit of fluttering hope that flickered before Jaime snuffed it out.

By the time he retraced his steps over the hill and down to the clearing, erasing tracks as he went, Hunt and Podrick had returned and were huddled around a small, sickly fire with Brienne. The sky above was fading to an inky black and the wind had calmed. The scent of cooked meat and wood smoke filled the air. He made his way toward the group, dropping the saddle bag near Hunt, and sat across the fire on a log someone had thought to drag over from the trees. Hunt sat close to the wench on a large, flat rock, turning a rabbit on a stick over the fire. Fat dripped off the carcass and sizzled in the flames. Brienne was hunched as close to the fire as she dared, her cloak still wrapped around Podrick’s slender shoulders. Hunt leaned over to whisper something to Brienne and she laughed. It was not a sound Jaime had heard often, girlish and light, and it put his teeth on edge. 

Suddenly, Hunt lurched to his feet and handed Jaime the rabbit on the stick.  “A feast fit for a King… _slayer_!” He exclaimed, looking pleased and smug all at once.

Now here was a man who believed his wit would carry him through life, and Jaime wondered if Hunt’s sword were as sharp as his tongue. _If I had both hands, I would test him for myself_.  But he did not, and that made him angrier still.  

Jaime accepted the rabbit without a word, his eyes trained on Hunt until the smaller man sat down again. Hunt busied himself by settling in close to Brienne. She kept her eyes lowered to the fire where she turned her own rabbit on a spit. The color was high on her cheeks, though, and Jaime suspected she was not immune to their exchange. She had defended him before when others called him Kingslayer, but she was silent now.

He’d said little to Brienne on the journey to the Vale; her betrayal in the Riverlands was still a tender thing. She’d sold him out to Lady Stoneheart, promising to deliver Jaime’s head. They’d been ambushed by the Brotherhood Without Banners just outside of Pennytree. They called him Oathbreaker and Kingslayer, and dragged them off into the woods. But Jaime was not a complete fool; he’d ordered some of his own bannermen to follow, and they stormed the secret hollow and ended Stoneheart’s reign.

He understood why Brienne had done it — told a lie in desperation. Innocence was her weakness, and she could not let Podrick and Hyle Hunt hang. She’d asked him to go with them to the Vale and largely ignored his presence since, fretting over Podrick and Hunt while they left the Riverlands behind them

But while the wench worried for Podrick and Hunt, Jaime worried for her. She had a pallor to her cheeks from too little sleep and a lingering fever that she could not seem to shake. Her right arm was still tender from a break, and a thick red scar ringed her neck. She called out in her sleep, words and groans that left Jaime hovering over her in the dark. She’d called out his name more than once, her voice a twisted, tortured thing. In the morning, she would not look at him. Jaime had tried to catch her attention more than once, but the wench was stubborn as a mule and she kept her eyes on her boots or the trees or the snow.

And always Hyle Hunt loitered somewhere near. He sat next to her at the fire and rode beside her during the day. He made quiet comments that set her smiling or blushing, and some that left her pursing her lips in disapproval. Jaime had become a connoisseur of the wench’s many shades of red; he took pride in making her flush with his lewd comments and bravado. What was it that the knight whispered to her to draw them out? What promises had he made her?

Jaime ripped into the rabbit with his teeth, hot juices running down his chin as he stared across the fire. Podrick’s weedy voice broke the silence in the camp.

“Will it snow tonight, Ser, my Lady?” He asked Brienne, setting aside his own portion of rabbit and looked up.

“Aye,” replied Hunt, grinning. “Tonight and every other night to come, until we’re buried so deep in snow that we have to tunnel our way to the Vale.”

If Hunt was expecting smiles to crack at his jest, he was sorely disappointed. Podrick frowned, and Jaime looked over at the wench. She trained her eyes on the fire again, tearing pieces of the rabbit apart with her fingers, and ignored them. Her straw hair was stringy with grit and melted snow, and the bandage on her cheek had slipped to reveal angry, puckered flesh. Her eyes, blue as they were, caught the firelight like the moon on water. She shifted on her seat, as if she felt his appraisal of her.

Jaime stood and grabbed the saddlebag next to Hunt, heading for the trees to check their horses. “It will not snow,” he said, pulling his heavy cloak from his shoulders. He stopped next to Brienne and dropped it on the rock beside her. Her shoulders stiffened but she did not turn around. “But it will be bitterly cold, cold enough to make you weep and pray for death.”

*

He was strapping the saddlebag onto his mount when she found him. “You shouldn’t scare the boy,” she said reproachfully.

“Hunt jests of tunneling through the snow and gives him hope,” Jaime replied without looking at her. He tugged at the buckle on the saddlebag, hating the way the cold iron felt on his fingertips. “The boy doesn’t need hope; he needs to stay alive.”

When nothing but silence met his words, Jaime turned and studied her in the dark. She stood a few feet away, running one of her hands along her mare’s grey nose. Firelight flickered thinly through the trees and cast Brienne in long shadows. Her breath was a pale cloud in the chilly air. Jaime was gratified to see she had thrown his cloak over her shoulders.

“Lannister red suits you, my lady,” he said, partly because it was the truth and partly because he wished to draw her out.

Brienne did not respond, only tugged at the ruff of fur around her neck self-consciously. She stepped away from the horse and walked farther into the trees. Jaime followed, their steps crunching in the snow.

“You don’t like Hyle,” she said finally, “but we need him. He is a good fighter and a decent man.” Jaime snorted. “You may not think so,” Brienne continued, “you both bring each other’s hackles up, though I cannot think of why. He has your same wit. I — I thought you would get along.”

“So, I send you off with my sword to fulfill our quest and you cannot go more than a few weeks without finding someone to replace me?” His words sounded petty and childish even to his own ears. “I don’t trust him, Brienne. He watches you like a fox watches a hen.”

“I know what he wants from me,” she replied. There was something close to resignation in her voice, and Jaime took a step forward without thinking, backing her into a tree and touching her elbow with his left hand.

“What do you want from me, Ser?” She asked, her eyes hooded and dark in the light.

“I want you to stop sulking like a dog that’s been kicked,” he replied. “I want you to stop pretending like I didn’t abandon my men to ride to the Vale with you. Where is your fight, Brienne?” He knocked his golden hand against the hilt of her sword with a soft metallic clang. “Is Oathkeeper just an ornament now, or do you still know how to use it?”

Brienne raised her chin, her eyes flashing in the dark. “I can wield it better than you can, Ser,” she said angrily.

“I bet you could,” Jaime replied, thinking of the many oaths he’d broken. Sansa Stark was just another one to add to the list, unless by some miracle they made it past the Bloody Gate and through the Mountains of the Moon after all.

He’d told Brienne that he followed her to the Vale because she was his last hope for honor. But even that, he knew, was a lie. He’d jumped like a fool when she’d ridden into Pennytree; he’d never felt so relieved to see her, relieved to hear news of Sansa Stark — however false it had proved; relieved to think the boredom of the Riverlands might finally be broken by the arrival of the wench. His thoughts had turned to her often while he’d campaigned, and he did not relish the idea that now, even after her betrayal, he could lose her again.

“Brienne.” He took another step towards her, pressing her up against the tree. “I’ve _missed_ you.” She started at his words, and he pressed his hand into the warmth of her neck.  “You act as if you do not believe someone could miss you, wench.”

“Why should I?” She asked, her eyes defiant.

“Because it’s the truth,” he said, his chest swelling at the indignation in her voice.  _There she was, his Brienne._

He pressed his mouth to hers and brushed her chapped lips with his once, twice. The lightest touch. His ran the tip of his nose along the ridge of her own, finding that she moved into him when he pressed his mouth to her brow and tipped to kiss the corner of her mouth. It had been so long since he'd kissed a woman, he didn’t know where to place his hands — hand, he amended, bumping Brienne's hip with his golden one, clanging against Oathkeeper’s hilt again. She made an embarrassed sound in her throat and pulled away.

Her face was aflame and she would not meet his eyes. Jaime groaned at the absurdity of it all. He felt like a green squire at his first courting, clumsy and unsure. He longed for Brienne to cast her blue gaze back on him, but she kept her eyes trained firmly on the snow. Their horses nickered not far away.

"I’m sorry,” she mumbled, sliding along the bark to move away from him.

"Wait," Jaime growled. He reached out and grabbed her hand. "I can do better."

He pulled her against his chest, backing them into the tree once more. Brienne inhaled and opened her mouth, as if she would protest, but she surprised him by pressing her hand into the curve at his back, drawing him closer.

"Jaime," she sighed.

She parted her lips, her breath warm and damp. His teeth pulled at her bottom lip and his tongue followed quickly to sooth. He deepened the kiss and clutched her to him, his tongue sliding into her mouth. They were each bundled in thick wool and boiled leather, but Jaime could still feel the strength of her body beneath his own, her long legs strong against his. He was careful with her right arm and tender with the scars around her neck and at her shoulder. He pulled the fur collar of the cloak down to brush his lips against the skin beneath her ear. She moaned, and he could stand it no more.

He pulled away. “Tell me,” he said, his voice ragged, “tell me now if you plan to pursue whatever it is Hunt’s offering.”

She shook her head. “I swore an oath to find Sansa Stark,” she whispered. “That’s the only thing that matters now.”

Jaime ducked his head down against her shoulder. He would follow her to the Vale, his own oaths be damned. He would follow her farther than that, he knew, like the fool he was. He pulled her to him again, but Pod’s shrill voice broke them apart immediately.

“My lady! Ser! My lady!”

The horses whinnied and kicked at the snow. Jaime turned his head, Brienne’s breath a heavy gust in his ear. The light from their campfire jumped and shuddered through the trees. There were dark shapes in the clearing and voices, low and deep, and then the sound of singing steel rent the air.

“Men from the Gate,” Brienne gasped, “or clansmen from the Hills.”

Pod screamed again, and Hunt called out their names. Jaime pulled Brienne from the tree, Oathkeeper already flashing at her hip. Her face was pale as bone against the trembling shadows and the snow.

“Come, my lady,” he said.

He dropped her hand, reached for his sword, and then they ran.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
